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A Berlin mural for Giulio Regeni, by El Teneen.On
January 25th,
2016 Giulio Regeni, a young Italian graduate student at Cambridge,
was kidnapped by local security forces, who later tortured and killed
him. Right after, a transnational campaign asking for truth and
justice was launched by Regeni’s fellows at Cambridge, his family,
and the Italian Section of Amnesty International, while Rome and
Cairo attorneys began their investigations – which are now stuck
in the mud: two years later, the call for truth and justice has yet
to be answered.

Identity

Giulio
Regeni was an Italian PhD candidate at Cambridge, who moved to Cairo
for his fieldwork, researching independent trade unions, especially
that of street vendors, in post-2011 Egypt. After disappearing on
January 25th,
2016 — on the anniversary of the beginning of the 2011 uprisings—
his tortured corpse was found on February 3rd,
on the outskirts of Cairo. Despite several implausible and toxic
narrations, fabricated by Egyptian investigators and reported by some
Italian media, all the evidence collected so far by independent
media investigations,
scholarly analyses, and a New
York Times
reportage
unanimously points to the conclusion that Regeni was tortured and
killed by Egyptian security services.

Political violence is one of the few available ways for the regime to show its waning sovereignty

Since
al-Sisi’s military coup in 2013, Egypt - having a long history of
human rights violations by its authorities - experienced a further
increase in repressive measures, with tens of thousands of
people
held
in custody as political opponents,
a massive recourse
to torture
and
enforced
disappearances,
and a widespread lack of rule
of law.
The development of a paranoid and media-induced xenophobia has been
part and parcel of such a process (Declich
2016:
79-84). As argued by Maged
Mandour,
the current expansion of coercive apparatuses and increasingly
frequent use of torture has reached such an extent to become partly
counterproductive: like a ritual display of power, the use of
political violence is one of the few available ways for the regime to
show its waning sovereignty (cf. Brown
2010;
Wadivel
2006).

Giulio
Regeni was a polyglot, well-travelled, cosmopolitan Italian citizen,
and Cambridge PhD student. As we have already shown in an
article
from last year, Regeni’s identity would have placed him in a high
position in what, following Judith Butler (2004;
2009),
we may call the hierarchies of grief, potentially making him a
perfect martyr for the so called western
public
sphere - while Egyptian victims aren’t. However, reality didn’t
really confirm this expectation. Being
a liminal and polyhedral figure, Regeni couldn’t fit univocal
narratives and illegitimate appropriations. His leftism prevented the
nationalist reduction; his “exceptionally brilliant” intellectual
career abroad hampered the national-popular elaboration, while the
appropriation “from the left” was prevented by the fragmentation
of the Italian
institutional
left, the indifference of the Italian
Democratic
Party, and the biographical absence of Regeni from the recent history
of Italian social movements.

This
difficulty of appropriation went hand in hand with one of
signification. From a western
perspective, Regeni’s death didn’t take place within a context of
war or struggle: his family and fellows had no immediate horizon of
meaning according to which to
signify
his death. However, there was no similar difficulty for Egyptian
activists, who immediately traced the murderers’ profiles and
appropriated Regeni’s death as that of “one
of us”,
one of the “martyrs
of the Egyptian revolution.”
Nonetheless, when some awareness of the responsibility of the
Egyptian government reached the Italian shores, two parallel
processes of signification took place: Regeni became either a “hero”
(e.g. [1];
[2];
[3])
or “victim” (e.g. [1];
[2];
[3]).
As a hero, he was celebrated for his academic achievements, within a
“self-made man” rhetorical framework: in other words, this
process created a single “hero” abstracted from the context, thus
inhibiting a political understanding of his death. On the other hand,
the idea of Regeni as a victim spread widely. This narrative, which
was not wrong in itself, had nonethelessdangerous
implications: it implemented a semantic shift, according to which the
researcher was no longer a victim only because he had been tortured
and killed without fault (as he actually was), but also because he
had been “unable to save himself.”

A
victimisation of this kind was all but innocent, since in many cases
it
coincided with the reassertion of the untenable (e.g. Beccaria
and Marcucci 2016)account
claiming that Regeni, despite his good faith, had been used as an
“unaware
spy”
by
a vague array of subjects (Cambridge university, British secret
services…)
supposedly interested in collecting
the information
he was putting together for
his doctoral dissertation.
Such a narrative process (Regeni killed as a fatality of a “bigger
game”) was accompanied by a process of feminisation - or at least
de-virilisation - of the figure of the researcher. This shift has
been made possible by a series of traits that may fall within the
cultural sphere of “weakness:” his being young, intellectual,
precarious researcher (therefore poor), left-wing, and victim
of betrayal
(by
the double-jeweler trade unionist Mohammed Abdallah).
It should be added that this narration comes from people who embody
in various ways its antithesis, observing Regeni with paternalistic
compassion - especially in the Italian public sphere, where the
leading role of Regeni’s
parents
implies for many people the presentation of the researcher always as
“someone’s
son,”
and not as an autonomous subject.

The portrait painted by Egyptian activists was more faithful to his person than its Italian mainstream counterpart

While
several Italian depictions of Regeni failed to truly represent his
identity precisely because they abstracted his figure from the
necessary background, the portrait painted by Egyptian activists was
more faithful to his person than its Italian mainstream counterpart.
This very fact opened the possibility of a radical remembrance, one
that could simultaneously ask for truth and justice for Regeni and
for Egyptians’ lives, making them grieveable — and politically
meaningful — even from a western
standpoint. It was there that Regeni’s case started revealing its
critical potential.

Normalisation

As
early as last January we
noticed
how the memory of the researcher drawn up by Egyptian activists was
more faithful and respectful of his figure than the sometimes
grotesque distortions proposed by the Italian media. Precisely in
this element we have seen the possibility of a radical use of memory
- that is, of remembering Giulio without obliterating the analogous
fate of the many Egyptian victims - through the notion of
exemplarity,
in the light of which the example belongs to a class, but while it
exhibits and delimits it, it extends beyond its margins, thus coming
to adjoin with the twin concept of exception (cf. Agamben
1998:
20-27). In other words: Regeni perfectly exemplified the violence of
the repressive al-Sisi regime, but at the same time its western
status made him an exception in the endless list of victims. Because
of this exceptionality, its exemplary nature was increased: neither
his passport, nor the colour of his skin, nor his affiliation to one
of the most prestigious universities in the world have
prevented
the ordinary violence of Egyptian security apparatuses from knocking
on Regeni. Hence the evocative potential of his figure for local
activists. However, since January 2016, such a possibility for a
radical use of memory has been curtailed, as we have seen, on both
sides of the Mediterranean. Italian and Egyptian governments and
diplomacies seemed, and still seem, to ignore Regeni’s case almost
as much as they ignore the local victims.

Over
the past year, a progressive normalisation of the diplomatic
relations between the two countriestook
place. Italy’s only diplomatic action against Egypt – the recall
of the Italian ambassador in Cairo, Maurizio Massari, in April 2016 –
was later cancelled by a replacement:
ambassador Giampaolo Cantini landed in Cairo on September, 14th
2017. The restoration of the status
quo ante
was explained by the members of the Italian
Foreign Affairs parliamentary Commissions
with these words: “Human rights cannot overly affect our
international relations, otherwise we should review diplomatic
relations with dozens of states.”
The re-normalisation of diplomatic relations was also legitimised by
recalling Italian economic and geopolitical interests in Egypt. The
central point in this connection is the Libyan question and the
so-called “European migration crisis”, as shown by the parallel
evolution of the two dossiers over this last summer.

The quest for truth about Regeni’s killing is traded for the faculty to realise a work of collective amnesia on a large scale

If Renzi’s
cabinet (2014-2016) had already promoted agreements to stop migratory
flows through Niger, current Minister of the Interior Minniti
recently
orchestrated a drastic extension of the strategy to Libya (and again
Niger), alsosigning
a neocolonial agreement
with
Serraj’s Coast
Guard,
who are quite
close
to
the
traffickers themselves. Considering both Serraj’s weakness and
General Haftar’s power in the
eastern region of Libya,
Italy needed Sisi to intercede with Haftar, to fully control migrant
policies in Libya. Every transnational encounter between Egyptian and
Italian authorities would end with some empty rhetorical words on the
Regeni case: Egyptians would reaffirm their willingness
to collaborate, Italians would renew their confidence in Cairo
investigators. As powerfully summarised
by Mattia Toaldo, “Italy gave up the search for truth about a
murder to reduce the influx of migrants.”
In
this connection, the shocking human rights violations taking place in
Libya, with the demonstrated
collusion
of Italian and European authorities, show us a depressing scenario:
the quest for truth about Regeni’s killing is traded for the
faculty to realise a work of collective amnesia on a large scale - an
amnesia of all the lives upset or lost in the Mediterranean, or at
the periphery of the empire.

After
the Sinai
mosque attack
in November 2017, the rhetorics of Sisi as an hero of the western
“war against terrorism” was
boosted.
According to right-wing senator Maurizio
Gasparri,
Egypt is “an ally under terrorist attack” and “it is useless
and self-destructive to continue with demagogic
propaganda speeches,
while not acting in concrete support of the Egyptians” - where the
propaganda
speeches
are those asking for truth and justice in the Regeni case.

In
the meantime, the economic relations between the two countries
continued successfully: in the first three months of 2017 they
recorded a
30%
increase
in trade – without considering the energy sector, while Eni (once
the National Hydrocarbons Authority, now a multinational company)
opened the
Zohr
gas field,
a huge gas site off the Egyptian coast, discovered just after
Regeni’s death and worth 7
billion EUR
of investments.
Even the sale
of weapons
by Italian companies to Egyptian security corps – the same ones
implicated in thousands of “Regeni cases” – has increased.

The
will of removing the focus from the real political and judicial
responsibilities in Egypt and Italy took several forms - one of the
most false, offensive, and dangerous being the accusations addressed
to Cambridge university and Regeni’s supervisor, professor Maha
Abdelrahman, by several Italian politicians and media (e.g. newspaper
La
Repubblica).
The accusation of non-cooperation addressed to Cambridge University
and professor Abdelrahman was journalistically assembled in Italy in
June 2016, as shown
by Lorenzo Declich, and it is still mediatically powerful. In this
regard, The
Guardianpublished
several letters in solidarity with professor Abdelrahman, signed by
hundreds of professors and scholars: Regeni’s fieldwork followed
high standard research protocols, and any accusation of ingenuity
against him or his professor is nothing but victim
blaming.
This phenomenon has even escalated
in
the occasion of Abdelrahman’s recent
testimony
in front of Italian investigators. However, even Cambridge is not
safe from any criticism. According to our sources, the university had
been advised by its lawyers to keep a low profile, keeping out of the
spotlight in order to protect its reputation. As professor Lucia
Sorbera
pointed
out,
Cambridge, as any neoliberal university, has taken on “the postureof
the corporate world, i.e. legalistic attitudes and distance from
every official stance,” in continuity with the choice of
outsourcing to students and precarious researchers risks and
responsibilities.

Memory

Over
the past months,
several
efforts to erase the political potential of memory have been put in
place. By
re-sending
its ambassador to Cairo, Italy ended
the
only diplomatic action it had done in the name of Giulio Regeni:
contemporarily and coherently, Italy has
ignited an
“institutional memory” process, whose only purpose is to
historicise Regeni’s figure and confine it to
the past, thus discarding any political and institutional
responsibility in the present. In other words, what we are witnessing
is an attempt to transform the researcher into
an exception without exemplary potential, a bi-dimensional icon
existing in spatiotemporal isolation.

For
example,
the announcement
of the ambassador’s return was made on the fourth anniversary of
the Rabaa
massacre
- in which the army, led by Sisi, killed a thousand supporters of the
Morsi government. Depicting Egypt as worthy of stable diplomatic
relations, Italian authorities accordingly disavowed its bloody
recent past.
At
the same time, state-controlled Egyptian media have welcomed Italy’s
decision as an acknowledgement of the fact that the Regeni case is
now closed, and local security services had nothing to do with it
(e.g. [1];
[2];
[3]).

The long-term objective is to historicise the figure of Regeni and relegate it to the past, thus nullifying all political responsibility in the present and in the future

On
the other hand,
when announcing the return of the ambassador, Italian Minister
Angelino Alfano has also
announced
the dedication of an Italian-Egyptian university and the auditorium
of the Italian Institute of Culture in Cairo to
the murdered researcher
(both
of
which never
took place), in
addition to holding commemorative
ceremonies in all Italian institutional offices in Egypt and,
perhaps, the dedication of The Mediterranean Games of 2018 to
him (which
will probably not happen). Alfano demonstrates that he believes, at
least instrumentally, in the mythopoeic function of institutions in
producing memory on a national scale: on the one hand, announcing the
commitment of the state
in the memorial process would serve to counteract the lack of
interest from thepolitical
point of view; on the other, the long-term objective is to
historicise the figure of Regeni and relegate it to the past, thus
nullifying all political responsibility in the present and in the
future, and neutralising
the radical potential of Regeni’s remembrance.

Basically,
what is being proposed is a space-time confinement of memory.
Objectified within commemorations that embalm the absence of truth
and justice for his death, Regeni becomes two-dimensional, iconic,
without depth and specificity – therefore not waiting to receive a
particular explanation for a particular destiny. It is a flat
generalisation that makes any comparison impossible: if Regeni is
considered a victim of human cruelty – instead of a victim of his
murderers – his figure becomes abstract, decreasing the possibility
for Egyptians to identify with him. On the temporal level, it is a
stasis: memory is frozen, it is no longer a resource for creating
alliances with victims of other crimes that occurred at other times.
The ritual, in this sense, inhibits any diachronic reading in
contrast with the power-imposed chronology. In this way, an apparent
apotheosis coincides with a damnatio
memoriae:
the very way in which the history of Regeni is consecrated renders
his biography incomprehensible exactly when it cuts the link with the
political context in which it was prematurely concluded.

The
Italian authorities, therefore, are proposing a conservative
safekeeping of memory. Such an attempt to trigger a (domesticated)
national memorial process reopens, however, the question of how a
radical transnational memory should act.

Not all voices and memories are silenced in the same way, nor to the same extent

First
of all, in the face of such an organised form of indirect censorship,
a radical view of memory should probably be an openly polemical one,
challenging the purported objectivity of official memory as
elaborated by public authorities – indeed, the mise
en scène
of state
impartiality, its self-positioning as “the point of view
overlooking all points of view” (Bourdieu
2014[1990]:
5), is a considerably ancient phenomenon, one which imaginary
communities
such as nations have been founded upon (Anderson
2006 [1983]:
chap. 11). We may even say that politics is, in a sense, the way to
make the unthinkable thinkable: if one of the most frequent kinds of
oppression involves, in fact, the forced relegation of entire
categories of people into a private, extra-political dimension -
from which complaints may arise but intelligible speeches cannot–
then
a
political narration is first of all an intervention on what can be
seen and said, the inclusion of a conflict within the consensual
illusion of the status quo (cf.
Rancière
2001:
§§7-8). In this connection, it is important to notice that not all
voices and memories are silenced in the same way, nor to the same
extent.

One
of the most important features of exemplarity is that it can
acknowledge these differences: it is activated, as mentioned above,
by its rhetorically ambiguous position between the part and the
whole, between exception and inclusion. This position emphasises,
on the one hand, the common human vulnerability to violence and the
existential core of the experience of loss (Butler
2004:
20) - think of Regeni’s mother, Paola Deffendi, and her call
to
Egyptian mothers who are in a situation similar to hers. On the other
hand, it allows us not to elude the very unequal distribution that
this vulnerability assumes for different people (Butler
2009:
3;43) -
moreover,
it requires us not to essentialise the pain deriving from suffering
injustice, which can result in qualitatively different experiences
for subjects with different degrees of subalternity (cf.
Honig
2010:
8-9;
Thobani
2007:
176-177). In other words, the example makes a series of stories
identifiable as coming from the same class without making them
identical.

The
choices made by the Italian government and its Egyptian counterpart
have certainly attempted to lessen the possibility that the
remembrance of Regeni’s fate may carry that of thousands of
Egyptian victims. Undeniably, this circumstance partially
defuses
the dynamics of exemplarity, but it is at the same time the
confirmation of its relevance, of its capacity to destabilise those
in power through the creation of new alliances. Now more than ever,
therefore, there are no ways of claiming justice for Regeni that can
disregard the broader contours where his murder is placed. The aim of
activists on both sides of the Mediterranean should be, then, to
ensure that the myriad of other stories of injustice that the
researcher’s death may recall do not disappear or lose their
specificity. It will consequently be necessary to bring out these
stories from the generic plural that in the western
public sphere makes them a mere collective counterpart of Regeni’s
singular experience.

An
important clarification is needed at this point. We cannot fail to
declare the biased perspective from which we ourselves are writing:
that, among other things, of those who have the privilege of being
able to discuss the repressive measures implemented in Egypt without
having to fear for their own safety. Our emphasis on a conflictual
declination of memory is in no way intended to minimise the material,
dangerous conditions faced by those who are currently opposing the
al-Sisi regime. In today’s Egypt, fear is now becoming a panoptical
technique: even people who are not actually under the lens of the
capillary security apparatus feel constantly observed and limit their
behaviour accordingly.

Egyptian activists do not of course need a spokesperson, but critical allies

At
the same time, considerations of this sort must not lead to a
bracketing of the voices of opposition that continue to rise from
that country. It is certainly true that the climate of terror created
by the regime pollutes the very fabric of society, permeating even
the daily dynamics, but, as
noted
by Helena Nassif writing about field research in Egypt after the
death of Regeni, the psychophysical experience of fear can become a
powerful ethnographic instrument (see also here),
such as to make the perspective of the witness more acute than that
of the mere observer (cf. also Nassif
2017).
In other words, the Egyptian
activists do not of course need a spokesperson, but critical allies -
that is to say, allies by virtue of a solidarity that does not
aestheticize their disobedience against the authorities through an
updated form of orientalism (cf. Tedesco
2017:
124-135). Only an alliance between western
and Egyptian subaltern voices may be able to succeed in the quest for
truth and justice for Giulio and the
myriads
of other activists and common people,
who
are victims of Sisi’s regime.

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